Items Tagged with 'National Association of Realtors'

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Existing home sales decreased in January, seeing the largest annual decline in more than three years. NAR's chief economist explained the utter lack of sufficient housing supply and its influence on higher home prices muted overall sales activity in much of the U.S. last month.

The National Association of Realtors reported as housing inventory sank to its all-time low during the fourth quarter, home prices increased, creating all-new highs in many U.S. markets. A majority of the country saw an upswing in buyer interest at the end of last year, which ultimately put even more strain on inventory levels and prices.

About 75% of current non-homeowners say they would like to own a home one day, and consider it as part of the American Dream. However, the reasons why they want to buy a home, or more specifically, one major reason that isn’t a factor in their decision, might come as a surprise.

In a letter sent to Congress on Monday, the National Association of Realtors urged representatives to support the Mortgage Choice Act. The bill would adjust the Truth in Lending Act's definitions of points and fees under the Ability to Repay/Qualified Mortgage rule.

Pending home sales rose in December for the third straight month, providing further evidence that 2017 was a positive year for housing, but the National Association of Realtors doesn’t expect the good times to keep rolling. But combine continually low housing inventory and the Republican tax plan and you have a recipe for a slowdown, according to NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

Despite a weak December ending a trend of two straight months of increases, there were still more existing homes sold last year than in any year since 2006. Last year's total of 5.51 million homes sold bests 2016’s total of 5.45 million and becomes the highest that figure has been since 2006, when there were 6.48 million existing homes sold.

Pending home sales inched up slightly in November, indicating home sales may rise to their highest point since 2006. But even as home sales increase at the end of this year, headed into 2018, NAR forecasts existing home sales and home price growth will slow primarily due to the altered tax benefits of homeownership in some high cost areas.

Existing home sales increased for the third straight month to their highest point in more than a decade. But as homes fly off the market, the housing market is unable to keep up with the growing demand, driving up home prices and causing dwindling inventory.

On Thursday, the Trump administration reversed the Obama administration’s decision on PACE loans and said that FHA will stop insuring mortgages on homes that also carry PACE liens. Unsurprisingly, some of the same housing groups that asked for a change to the PACE rules last year are in favor of the Trump administration’s decision.

Last month, Facebook announced that it was launching a massive push into real estate, bringing apartment rental listings to its Marketplace. The listings are powered by Apartment List and Zumper. But as it turns out, powering Facebook’s real estate listing movement isn’t the only big deal that Apartment List inked lately.

This month inHousingWire magazine

[Subscribers only] Multigenerational living, where two or more adult generations live under the same roof, is becoming a growing trend in the U.S. Currently about 19% of Americans now live in a multigenerational household, the highest level since 1950. That amounts to about 60.6 million adults in 2014, up from 57 million adults in 2012. And homebuilders have taken notice, designing houses specifically catered to this segment.

Feature

Would-be homeowners are inundated with picture-perfect examples of new and remodeled homes brimming with upgrades. But in the real world, homebuilders and investors must calculate the rate of return on these sometimes fleeting trends, weighing what buyers want with what they can actually afford. This feature looks at which features buyers of different age demographics consider the most important, and what that means for sellers.

Commentary

We’ve found that the handling and posting of payments during bankruptcy has been a widespread issue in our testing environment. Specifically, there is increased risk exposure in pre-and post-petition payment application and treatment, both inside and outside of the bankruptcy plan. Servicers and sub-servicers have created manual workflow workarounds to address the issue, however, it does open the servicer up to more exposure to calculation errors.